


born out of love

by deeppoeticgirl



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 20:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6209896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deeppoeticgirl/pseuds/deeppoeticgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>/SasuSaku/ Even in the aftermath, neither of them seemed to realize, too consumed in the haze of pleasure and the intense, intense love they felt for one another. Entangled in each other, they would fall asleep before any thought of worry could come to mind. She shouldn't be surprised. But, Sakura finds that she is. Traveling!Sasusaku. Post-canon. ONESHOT.</p>
            </blockquote>





	born out of love

She doesn’t think anything of it when she starts getting sick, some mornings. With a regularly changing diet of food and drinks her stomach isn’t used to, along with exposure to mild mold and bacteria in some bad inns, it is only normal that her body would rebel and that her immune system could get compromised. Sasuke wasn’t getting sick, but that was okay, because he’d been on the road for much longer than she had and no two bodies were the same.

He wasn’t of the same mind.

“Next town, we’re getting you checked out,” he says to her one day nearing noon, as she walks out of the bushes and sits next to him.

Sakura waves him off. “It’s nothing,” she insists, grabbing the tea he had set for her a few minutes earlier. “It’s probably just a bug–it’ll go away in a few days.”

“This is the fifth time this week,” he says, brows furrowing. “And you’ve already been sick like this earlier this month. It’s getting worse, Sakura. ” She tries to avoid his eyes when he stares more pressingly at her. After a moment, she hears him say again, “You’re getting checked out at the next village.”

“I’m telling you, it’s nothing,” she responds, a little exasperated. She raises her gaze to look at him, a little peeved. “I’m a medic, Sasuke-kun–give me _some_ credit.”

There is something in his gaze that takes her by surprise. Something like guilt flashing in its depths, like he hadn’t meant for his words to come across this way, and was berating himself for it.

“There’s a saying I’ve heard a long time ago,” Sasuke starts, voice quiet, “that doctors make the worse patients. That no one will ever be able to advise them on their health, because they make a living out of other people’s health. They won’t even think anything is wrong with them before much later, until they’re bedridden.” He pauses, and his brows furrow again. “I don’t want that for you.”

It is the way he looks and the way the last words leave his mouth that makes her falter, if just for a moment. If there is anything that always has her taken aback in awe, it is the way Sasuke shows his worry and care so very openly, sometimes, in a manner almost vulnerable. She understands, in these moments, how much she means to him.

“Okay, Sasuke-kun,” she breathes, eyes softening. “If you insist.”

Sasuke nods, and turns to the food he is cooking on the campfire, but she can see the relief passing visibly over his features. It makes her lips curl just so.

“What are you making?” she asks, shifting closer to him.

“Breakfast.”

She laughs a little at his brief reply. “Ah.”

Sasuke sighs. “Okayu with umeboshi and egg.”

“We had umeboshi left?”

He shrugs.

“Hmm. Well, it smells good.” Smiling, Sakura leans onto him, and closes her eyes. Sasuke is oftentimes shy with such acts of affection in public, but with the privacy of trees surrounding them and separated from the outside world, he has no problem accepting them. She wonders if he will always be like this, or if one day he might be comfortable holding her hand in front of their friends.

“Maybe when we get to the village, we can get some Mabo ramen, too,” she muses aloud. “I’ve been craving some lately.”

She feels Sasuke stop moving beside her, and this makes her open her eyes. Confused, she lifts her head from his shoulder to meet his gaze, and finds his brows furrowed with heavy doubt, eyes hard.

“You hate Mabo ramen,” he states, voice near-accusing. “You hate anything spicy.”

Sakura blinks, pauses, and then shrugs. “Taste in food changes with the years,” she says, brushing it off.

When the suspicion in Sasuke’s features doesn’t fade, Sakura rolls her eyes.

.

.

They arrive to the next village in two days time. Sakura, feeling a bit peckish, asks Sasuke if they should grab some food to eat, first. He looks like he is about to agree, but it is in that moment that Sakura feels the lurch of her stomach and it sends her scurrying to hurl into a nearby trashcan. Tears sting at the corner of her eyes, and acid burns at her tongue, but the feeling of rough fingers gently pulling back her hair and stroking at the back of her neck soothes her.

“Come on,” he says, after giving her a few minutes to recover. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

Shaking, she can only manage to nod for a moment. When she manages to get her knees to stop trembling, she wipes her mouth and says, “Yeah, maybe heading to the hospital first isn’t such a bad idea.”

.

.

The hospital is small but easy to spot, they find, when they finally manage to make their way through town. Painted with a faded blue and streaks of white, it is an old building, but they spot it immediately through the streets by the big red cross sign nailed into it.

And with a village this small, it is thankfully not busy–they are admitted near-immediately.

“We should have the results back in a few hours,” the nurse tells them, as she finishes drawing the blood sample and prepares her vial. “Since you are both passerby’s, and don’t live in this town, it would be much easier if you stayed around until they were ready. We have a spare resting room, if you’d like one.”

Sakura nods, and smiles, appreciative. “Thank you,” she says. “That would be great.”

The nurse smiles back. “I’ll send one of the other nurses to direct you. Just wait a moment, please.”

With a bow–one Sakura returns fully and Sasuke lightly–the nurse bids them both a good afternoon and leaves on her merry way.

“You can leave if you want, Sasuke-kun,” she offers, after a brief, comfortable silence. When a frown grows to his lips, Sakura realizes how her words sound, and blushes. “I mean, it won’t do either of us any good just waiting here,” she corrects quickly. “We want to stock up on reserves, and we need to find a good inn. I’m sure it’s nothing serious, probably some bug or virus getting around that she’ll end up giving me medication for. So why not use the time to run some errands, right?” 

Tilting her head lightly, she gives him a smile. Sasuke’s frown deepens, before he sighs and nods, rising from his seat. Before he walks out of the door, he pauses at the frame and looks at her.

“I’ll be back in a few hours, then,” he says. “Stay here until I do. Wouldn’t do either of us any good if you got lost in that state.”

“Sasuke-kun,” she teases, “it’s a small town. I’m not gonna get lost.”

He scowls, just a little. “Whatever.” She sees a small taint of pink on his cheeks. “Just… wait for me.”

Giggling lightly, she replies softly, “If I can wait five years for you, Sasuke-kun, I think a few hours are going to be manageable.”

A ghost of a smile crosses his lips, so fast she can barely manage to catch it, and when he leaves the room, he leaves her stomach flipping in on itself in an entirely pleasant way.

.

.

It takes three hours and a half before Sakura finally gets the results back. She’s sleeping in the room the young nurse had led her to, relishing in the feeling of a soft and comfortable bed. It is not the best she’s had, but it is far better than sleeping on a thin mattress placed on the ground, like she and Sasuke had been doing for the past week and a half. 

A soft voice and hand gently shaking her shoulder has her stirring awake.

“Miss Haruno? I’m sorry to wake you, but we have your test results back.”

“No problem,” she says, yawning and craning her neck. She smiles at the nurse. “So? Am I down with something? The flu? Bacterial infection?”

“Nothing like that, no,” the nurse says. The look in her eyes softens. “Everything’s in order for your health, Miss Haruno.”

“Really? That’s great. A bit strange, though… I mean you’d think with me getting sick like that and being easily exhausted, I would have caught something.”

“Ah, I didn’t say that there’s been no change in you, Miss Haruno…”

Sakura blinks, brows furrowing with confusion. Smiling, the nurse says, “You’re pregnant.”

She swears her heart stopped beating.

.

.

In truth, she shouldn’t be surprised. This is something that she should have known, or should have looked for, even, with the nights of slick, passionate intimacy they had spent together. They had not been very often, no, and never something planned, but they had omitted protection every time, lost in the passion of the moment. Sakura should have probably suspected at the possibility every time he spent himself inside her.

Even in the aftermath, neither of them seemed to realize, too consumed in the haze of pleasure and the intense, intense love they felt for one another. Entangled in each other, they would fall asleep before any thought of worry could come to mind.

It is almost ridiculous, she thinks now, to have not considered the possibility. How couldn’t she ever have realized in the mornings after? She had been too caught up in her love for him, perhaps, relishing in these moments that they had never been more close, more connected.

She should not be surprised.

Still, as she sits on the soft cot of the hospital, staring at the wall in front of her, Sakura finds that she is. A glowing hand on her belly, feeling the strong pulse of a new chakra, she wonders how to feel. A part of her is so incredibly at peace, so full of wonderment and tenderness, happy that she is carrying his child. In her dreams, she’d wanted nothing more than to give a new family to the man she loved more than anything in the world.

But did Sasuke even want children, after everything that happened? They had been so far from approaching the subject. She wasn’t even sure what they were, right now. Together, probably, but she doubts a baby had been on Sasuke’s mind at all, if even marriage.

The sound of the door opening draws her from her thoughts. She lifts her head to look, heart pounding anxiously at the sight of Sasuke, a dampened brown paper bag in hand.

“I’m back,” he says, once he finally sets eyes on her. She thinks he might have suspected to find her asleep. “I brought Mabo.”

Her eyes soften, and her belly warms pleasantly, the smile at her lips growing wide. “Thanks,” she says.

When she fishes out the food and hands him his own, she hears him say, “Did you get the results back?”

She pauses in the opening of her meal. “Yes,” she finally answers, after a moment. She won’t look at him, and with the way Sasuke refuses to tend to his own food, she thinks he might notice this, too. “Everything’s fine. Did you find an inn?”

“Two blocks away,” he answers, almost curt. “Don’t avoid the subject–are you sick?”

She takes a bite, relishes in the burn of the spice, feeling the urge to snort as she realizes where exactly this strange craving on spice came from, when normally she would never think to eat it. 

_Pregnant._

“…Not technically,” she finally answers, taking another bite.

Sasuke puts away her food, and forces her to meet his hard gaze by tipping her chin up with his fingers.

“What kind of answer is that?” he asks, voice low. “What are you hiding, Sakura?”

She stares at him, finding the traces of worry and care laced deeply in those black eyes, and finds her own concern to his reaction unfurling.

Taking a slow breath, she tells him tentatively, “I’m pregnant.”

He doesn’t respond, for one long moment. She can see that his mind is simply trying to take in what she has told him, that out of all the news he had been expecting, this had likely been the last. 

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” she says, swallowing tightly. “Believe me, it’s still a lot to take in for me, too. And we probably should have known when you–when we–” She blushes, and falters. “I don’t want you to think that I meant for this to–”

A hand on her belly makes her words catch in her throat, and she gasps, stiffening. Her eyes draw themselves down, and she shakes when she sees his large hand there, rubbing her still-flat belly with a tenderness she had never seen before, from him. She raises her gaze to look at him, slowly, breath quivering.

There are no words to describe the look of happiness he wears, when she finally locks eyes with him. Quiet but strong, and near-glowing, she feels the burn of tears brimming at the corners.

He steps towards her, then, and lowers his head, pressing his lips to her forehead in a heavy, reverent kiss. She can practically _feel_ the love he harbors for her in that moment. 

“Pregnant,” he finally says, moving his hand to feel more of her stomach. She feels his lips move to form a smile. Her heart nearly skips a beat.

“Thank you, Sakura.”


End file.
